SO I went and asked an expert ... here is some of what Mr.O'Connor had to say about personality tests:
The early days of personality testing were a "feeling out" of sorts. Tests like the Myers-Briggs (which actually grew out of the work of Freud’s understudy Carl Jung) were interesting, but as time has worn on they have been criticized quite a bit. These original tests were developed as “type tests” which basically compare our similarities placing people into a limited number of categories. The most common criticism is often summed up as the “Horoscope Effect” meaning that basically on any given day you could be described by any one of the given boxes. That is the problem with trying to tack down personality. I often tell the kids it is more of a film than a snapshot…”type tests” seem to accurately measure the snapshots. Most modern research in this area has grown out of what they call “trait tests”. Trait tests tend to measure some common traits that humans seem to exhibit in varying degrees. Personality tests using this approach tend to tell us more about our differences in relation to each other. The Big Five traits that have been studied and cross-correlated against numerous factors are Openness to new Experiences, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, & Neuroticism. I have come across a pretty simple trait test available through the University of Westminster in the UK It has a fairly short Five Factor model personality test that I think works well. Here is the link…enjoy! http://users.wmin.ac.uk/~buchant/wwwffi/ So in conclusion: Type tests = interesting and fun, but not very telling in the big picture (again think Horoscopes). Trait tests = really pretty solid and have proven to be reliable and valid.
LEFT BRAIN VS RIGHT BRAIN
PERSONALITY TEST
MULTIPLE TESTS ON BBC WEBSITE
SO I went and asked an expert ... here is some of what Mr.O'Connor had to say about personality tests:
The early days of personality testing were a "feeling out" of sorts. Tests like the Myers-Briggs (which actually grew out of the work of Freud’s understudy Carl Jung) were interesting, but as time has worn on they have been criticized quite a bit. These original tests were developed as “type tests” which basically compare our similarities placing people into a limited number of categories. The most common criticism is often summed up as the “Horoscope Effect” meaning that basically on any given day you could be described by any one of the given boxes.
That is the problem with trying to tack down personality. I often tell the kids it is more of a film than a snapshot…”type tests” seem to accurately measure the snapshots.
Most modern research in this area has grown out of what they call “trait tests”. Trait tests tend to measure some common traits that humans seem to exhibit in varying degrees. Personality tests using this approach tend to tell us more about our differences in relation to each other. The Big Five traits that have been studied and cross-correlated against numerous factors are Openness to new Experiences, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, & Neuroticism.
I have come across a pretty simple trait test available through the University of Westminster in the UK It has a fairly short Five Factor model personality test that I think works well. Here is the link…enjoy! http://users.wmin.ac.uk/~buchant/wwwffi/
So in conclusion: Type tests = interesting and fun, but not very telling in the big picture (again think Horoscopes).
Trait tests = really pretty solid and have proven to be reliable and valid.